For those who are curious; you may be many, or you may be nonexistent, in which case I am speaking into a void, I thought I'd explain in detail what I intended when I chose to title this blog "American Evolution." As is done with scripture, I chose to look at each word individually, in addition to their connection to each other.
American: This is easy. I will be focusing on American issues. The news I look into, respond to, and talk about is American, or at the very least affects America or Americans.
Evolution: Yes, I adhere to the theory of evolution. If a better supported and incompatible theory supersedes this as a viable alternative, I may reconsider, but I don't consider religious texts to be hard evidence against this theory. However, this is not solely concerned with the past and the origins of our species, but also with where we are going; how I see American culture developing, for better or worse.
Now for the two words together.
American Evolution: It is my hope to highlight, and perform my small part to advance, the evolution of America beyond the current state of today. It is to point out the areas in need of improvement, and highlight a direction to head in, or a path to follow, as I see it. I desire to see an evolution of consciousness in the American people. I want to see a people who is educated, and capable of critical thinking.
We've reached a point in American society where we no longer trust our elected representatives to, well, represent us. The prominence of political "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders (and yes, Donald Trump) are a testament to this growing zeitgeist. Unfortunately, even amid the backdrop of this awakening to the corruption and disdain of the establishment for the desires and passions of its constituency (which I sincerely hope is a true awakening, with lasting repercussions, rather than a venting of steam into which will be spent the revolutionary fervor, allowing us to settle anew into the familiar complacency of lassitude and despondency) we as a people fall short, for even in the glimpsing of it, we lack the acumen to put that realization to good use. This is by design. It is also the hurdle I wish to see us surmount, and play out my little role in boosting us over.
Right now what unites American is a sense of pervasive dissatisfaction, but with what or whom, we are divided. We have noticed that the narrative we are being fed does not make sense; we've dimly grasped that we are dreaming, but in that foggy way that does us little good. We are trying to wake up, or at least learn to dream lucidly, but we lack the skills, and they are pumping us full of tranquilizers and anesthetics to keep us under. It's time to pull out the morphine drip, and face reality.
It is no accident that this is but one letter away from American Revolution. I see the process of evolution as an inherently revolutionary act. We must change the way we see the world and interact with it. If we do that, the status quo cannot remain intact. Many of us, myself included, are strongly attached to the idea of America. This attachment to the idea often causes us to don the rose-colored glasses with regards to the truth of America, and the truth is that we are not what we claim to be. In a sense, we never have been. Some of you may have the urge to shout epithets at the screen upon reading that, and if it were the end of the thought, I might even say you were justified; but it's not the end of the thought. Because our history is a tangled mess of people who have been trying to be what we claim to be; and those who beat the drum louder than anyone else, while marching against the tide of history and the values that they would claim to represent.
Part of growing up is accepting the delusions an romantic misconceptions of your childhood. Despite all of our self-righteous chest-slapping over our moral superiority, our history is filled with some of the worst atrocities in history. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese Americans, mass incarceration, these are only a prominent few. They need not define us, but we cannot pretend they are not a part of who we are as a nation. They continue to shape us even now. Racism did not end with Martin Luther King Jr. Upton Sinclair didn't forever stop industry from mistreating its workers. Women's suffrage did not win them equality.
The process of cultural evolution must be accompanied by a wide-spread personal evolution. It is the responsibility of each of us to become better than we are. It is our responsibility to pay attention and observe the world around us; our city, our state, our nation, and hold it accountable for being what we deserve it to be.
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